Maximising your investment in Search Advertising Alasdair Cross – Adprecision Commercial Director

Adprecision Ltd. 2005

www.adprecision.net

Adprecision – who we are

• Search and online advertising technology for the Travel Industry

• Improving clients search advertising performance by creating trusted feeds into Google Adwords, Overture, Miva, Cheapflights, Kelkoo etc.

• Unique ESP (Enhanced Search Performance). Patent pending system distributes clients travel products into search engine Paid Listings, frequently refreshing ads based on inventory feeds

• Live updating of offers in online ads (banners, web pages etc.)

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Online Advertising solutions for the travel industry

ESP

Product feeds into Search Engine PPC

listings

Product feeds into comparison shopping

engines

Product feeds into display ads (Banners,

pop-ups etc.)

Dynamic “Splash Pages”. SEO / PPC branded offer pages

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Our Clients and Partners…

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Search Engine Marketing

• Online advertising in perspective• Linking travel inventory to Search Engines• Management / analysis tools• Improving ROI• Case studies• The future for search marketing

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Why are search engines important for the travel industry?

• Approx. 70% of online travel bookings involve a search engine*

• Consumer averages 7.8 clicks to different sites from search engine listings before purchase**

• Highly transparent advertising medium• Over 500m travel related searches on Google last

year

*Yahoo / Comscore research - April 2005

**Doublick Search before the purchase, July – Sep 2004

But…But…

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ROI is dropping for travel advertisers…

• More companies are advertising on search engines

• Bid Prices are rising E.g. “Dubai Holiday” max. cpc = £3.00 USA - bid prices have dropped for the 4 month in a row

• Saturation of high-volume keywords

Now, more than ever, the key to successful marketing is to test, track, analyse and change!

Online advertising in perspective

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10

Media consumption vs ad spend

28%

5 % 3.8%

51%

Ad spend (%)Source: Forrester Research: Forrester Consumer Technographics

(UKIUM), Q4 2003Base: British online adults

Hours

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20

+- Cost of acquisition or response-

+

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Offlinemedia

Onlinemedia

Key

* = Continuous spend

+ = Campaignspend

Paid search *

E-newsletter ad *

Natural search (SEO) *

Word-of-mouth *

Affiliate *

Traditional media ad +

E-mail list *

Interactive ad *Online sponsorship *

Directmail +

Viral+

Size of circlesProportional

to spend

Online marketing shows high traffic volumes and low CPA

© Dave Chaffey

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Consumers travel searching habits – long cycle, many searches

• 77% of travel final searches are made over 1 week before purchase – long research cycle

• 33% of Travel website traffic comes from other travel related sites (85% higher than non-travel industries) – everyone is comparing

• 10 most successful search terms – 5 are brand specific and 5 are product searches

• 50% of travel searches use 3 words or more – people are learning to look for more specific results

Doubleclick – search before the purchase 2004

Hitwise UK Travel report Oct 2004

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The UK PPC search engine distribution map

© Omega Digital Media

Google + partners: approx 65% market share

Hitwise – March 2005 Search report

Miva, Mirago + partners: approx 5% market share

Overture + partners: approx 25% market share

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Sponsored listings - what are they?1. Google Adwords

Rankings in Adwords are determined by CTR x Bid price

Higher CTR = higher ranking at no extra cost.

Tip – improve CTR - make your ads relevant to each keyword!

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Google Adsense – contextual advertising

• In use on over 100,000 websites

• More conventional “Push” advertising

• Relevancy of ads is key• Much lower CTR’s

(approx. 0.1% - 0.5%)• Extra revenue stream

for publishers

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2. Overture sponsored listings

Appear in different formats across many portals incl. Yahoo, MSN, Lycos etc.

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Miva – pay per click / call listings…

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Travel comparison sites

• Mostly fixed CPC charging – semi auction

• Directory form of ad-listings using drop down menu’s

• Publish travel offers and/or spider sites in real-time

• Are they diluting brand value?

• Proposition of refining consumer interest and delivering highly qualified leads to advertisers

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Search - Common misconceptions / questions

“It’s purely a direct response medium” Every ad has an effect. Your offline marketing influences

your search marketing.

“Why are my clicks not converting ?” Latency – only 15% sales are made in-sessionDeep links – always link to the relevant pageGetting the “wrong” clicks

“Being at the top increases conversions”For certain keywords you can achieve up to 30% increase in conversion rates at positions 3 - 6

The Future…

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The Future….

• Behavioral Targeting Allows publishers and advertisers to buy audience

demographics, interests, social segments “Nearly 21% of online purchases will be behaviour

influenced in 2006” iMedia market intelligence

• Mobile Search Local targeting of content and ads

• iTV – Is TV still a “push” medium? - Will consumers search through their iTV’s?

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Search Engines, the future:1. “The Long Tail”

Definitions –

"The Long Tail is the realization that the sum of many small markets is worth as much, if not more, than a few large markets." Jason Foster

“The internet is about aggregating niches…”

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Where is Search heading?

Today’s search:

“New York flight”

“Villa Algarve”

Tomorrow’s search:

“New York flight on 12 Dec”

“Villa in Albufeira in June with 4 bedrooms and pool”

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Travel’s search tail will get longer as experience grows…

Generic“Holiday Turkey”

“Flights” “Ski holiday”

Semi - specific“Bodrum Holiday” “Flight New York”

“Ski Tignes” Specific

“Hotel Calypso Benidorm” “Flight New York in June”

“Ski Tignes flying from Manchester”

Purchase probability

Cos

t £

Low High

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Search Engines, the future: 2. Behavioural and context relevant ad targeting

Does viewermatch profile

Cluster?

Source: twinlondon Ltd.

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Search – New Entrants

• MSN Adcentre will offer better targeting of ads based on demographics and behaviour (Age, gender, location)

• Ask Jeeves – Teoma search technology seeks to “understand” language.

• Miva – pay-per-call technology• Kayak – all the worlds hotels in one place• Trip Advisor – leveraging the power of consumer

reviews

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Search Engines, the future:3. Moving from an advertising channel to

a distribution channel

• Search Engines can now display travel companies inventory in their paid listings

• Ads should deep link to the relevant page in the advertiser site – easy booking

• Advanced keyword / inventory management can be used to optimise sales through SE’s

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Connecting travel inventory to advertising: the perfect circle

inventory inventory

Web server Web Server

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Improving ROI – choice of keywords

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NewAverage price of

Keywords

Average price of

Keywords

Range of Keywords used

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Many specific keywords = cheaper avg. CPC !

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Improving ROI – relevant ad-copy

Avg CTR – 19.4%. Nearly twice as many clicks as nearest competitors

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Sharp increase in CTR of specific keywords

Adprecision stats April – May 05, 6 clients, 68245 keywords tracked

Keyword Impressions Clicks CTR %australia flight 10,787 2,374 22.00%sydney flight 1237 478 38.64%hotel flamingo oasis benidorm 821 159 19.40%china flight 507 55 10.80%singapore flight 571 46 10.65%kalithea sun and sky hotel 17 11 64.70%dunamar hotel monte gordo 12 8 66.70%alcudia 4 star hotel 27 7 25.90%los pinares s argamassa 8 6 75.00%ola hotel vistamar majorca 7 5 71.40%cyprus august 36 3 8.30%

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Ad-copy relevancy

Regular ad-copy updates with accurate and informative information ensures high conversions

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Keywords/Search terms

Portugal apts/accom/holiday

Algarve apts/accom/holiday

Albufeira apts/accom/holiday

Sol apartments

x

4 star,

March,

April,

May

Beach

Resort centre

= 180 listings

Country Region Resort Board Duration Prop. name stars Price start end descriptionPT Algarve Albufeira S/C 7 Sol Apts. 4 £299 30/03/2005 15/05/2005 Located 5 mins from beach…

Converting travel data to ad listings

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Ad copy – Google Adwords (Portugal/Algarve/Albufeira/ Sol apartments) .

4* S/C Sol apts, Albufeira from £299

for 7 nts in Apr. Near beach, near golf.

Ad copy – Overture

(Portugal/Algarve/Albufeira/Sol apartments) from £299 in April for 7 nights

4 star self catering Sol apartments in Albufeira from £299 for 7 nights from April. Spacious apartments 5 minutes from beach with golf course nearby. ABC travel, the (Portugal/Algarve/Albufeira) experts.

Country Region Resort Board Duration Prop. name stars Price start end descriptionPT Algarve Albufeira S/C 7 Sol Apts. 4 £299 30/03/2005 15/05/2005 Located 5 mins from beach…

Converting travel data to ad listings

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Case Study – Travel Agent (call-centre bookings only)

• Using Adprecision ESP, we created over 16,000 specific keyword phrases for Overture from theirentire inventory database

• Each Google and Overture call was measured separately thru unique tel. No’s.

• Using Adprecision ESP, automatically created unique ad-copy for each keyword e.g. “Alpha Apartment Benidorm” Alpha Apartment Benidorm from £199 in May

Stay at this 3 star self-catering apartment near beach…• Regular refreshing of each ad-listing with up-to-date prices and

info• Deep links to relevant offer page for each ad-listing

Results – Avg. CPC was halved and now runs at 12p per click.

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Case Study – National Airline

• Worked with their existing Ad agency• Wanted to advertise long haul routes and business class short

haul routes and generate high quality traffic to their site• Created 1400 keyword phrases from generic to specific for

Overture. • Unique ad-copy for each keyword including best fares, relevant

airports, class of travel etc.• Regular updating of ad-listings to ensure accuracy

Results – CTR nearly 3 times average across range of generic keywords and UK achieved highest online conversion rate across Europe.

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Improving ROI – bid management, analysis and tracking tools

• Keyword mining & analysis – what my competitors are bidding on

• Optimise bids based on ROI information gained from EACH keyword phrase

• ROI / ROAS analysis / Bid gap adjustment

• Unified reporting

• Understanding ALL media – the holy grail.

Dart Search

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Search Engine marketing - 4 golden rules

Test, tweak, learn – Keywords, Ad creatives, bids, optimise campaign

Tracking, tracking, tracking – both online and offline. Outsource or inhouse?

If it’s too difficult, find an expert!Ad Agency / SEM/

Automate to save time - Bid management tools,ROI analysis, Ad-listing management software

Thank youAlasdair Cross